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"The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II."

That Judas Iscariot should come and slap
Jesus Christ on the shoulder in a familiar manner; that all
heavenliest nobleness should be flung out into the muddy streets
there to jostle elbows with all thickest-skinned denizens of
chaos, and get itself at every turn trampled into the gutters and
annihilated:--alas, the _reverse_ of all this was, is, and ever
will be, the strenuous effort and most solemn heart-purpose of
every good citizen in every country of the world,--and will
_reappear_ conspicuously as such (in New England and in Old,
first of all, as I calculate), when once this malodorous
melancholy "Uncle Tommery" is got all well put by! Which will
take some time yet, I think.--And so we will leave it.
I went to Germany last autumn; not _seeking_ anything very
definite; rather merely flying from certain troops of
carpenters, painters, bricklayers, &c., &c., who had made a
lodgment in this poor house; and have not even yet got their
incalculable riot quite concluded. Sorrow on them,--and no
return to these poor premises of mine till I have quite left!--In
Germany I found but little; and suffered, from six weeks of
sleeplessness in German beds, &c.


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